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components on its head. “The industry has thus far
been using what is known as the ‘top-down’ method.
Large portions are cut away from the base material until the
desired structure is achieved. Soon this will no longer be
possible due to continual miniaturization.” The new approach
is instead oriented on nature: molecules that develop
complex structures through self-assembling processes.
Golden Bridges Between Electrodes
The elements that thereby develop would be substantially
smaller than today’s tiniest computer chip components.
Smaller circuits could theoretically be produced with less
effort. There is, however, a problem: “Genetic matter
doesn’t conduct a current particularly well,” points out Erbe.
He and his colleagues have therefore placed gold-plated
nanoparticles on the DNA wires using chemical bonds.
Using a “top-down” method – electron beam lithography –
they subsequently make contact with the individual wires
electronically. “This connection between the substantially
larger electrodes and the individual DNA structures have
come up against technical difficulties until now. By combining
the two methods, we can resolve this issue. We could thus
very precisely determine the charge transport through
individual wires for the first time,” adds Erbe.
As the tests of the Dresden researchers have shown, a
current is actually conducted through the gold-plated wires
– it is, however, dependent on the ambient temperature.
“The charge transport is simultaneously reduced as the
temperature decreases,” describes Erbe. “At normal room
temperature, the wires function well, even if the electrons
must partially jump from one gold particle to the next
because they haven’t completely melded together. The
distance, however, is so small that it currently doesn’t
even show up using the most advanced microscopes.” In
order to improve the conduction, Artur Erbe’s team aims to
incorporate conductive polymers between the gold particles.
The physicist believes the metallization process could also
still be improved.
He is, however, generally pleased with the results: “We
could demonstrate that the gold-plated DNA wires conduct
energy. We are actually still in the basic research phase,
which is why we are using gold rather than a more cost-
efficient metal. We have, nevertheless, made an important
stride, which could make electronic devices based on DNA
possible in the future.”
Publication: B. Teschome, S. Facsko, T. Schönherr, J.
Kerbusch, A. Keller, A. Erbe: Temperature-Dependent
Charge Transport through Individually Contacted DNA
Origami-Based Au Nanowires, in Langmuir, 2016, 32 (40),
pp 10159–10165 (DOI: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.6b01961)
Xilinx, Inc. (NASDAQ:XLNX)
today unveiled details for new
16nm Virtex® UltraScale+™
FPGAs with HBM and CCIX
technology. Containing the
highest memory bandwidth
available,
these
HBM-
enabled FPGAs offer 20X
higher memory bandwidth
relative to a DDR4 DIMM
and 4X less power per bit
versus competing memory
technologies. The new
devices are architected to support the higher memory
needs of compute-intensive applications such as machine
learning, Ethernet connectivity, 8K video, and radar.
They also contain CCIX IP, enabling cache-coherent
Xilinx Unveils Details for New 16nm Virtex UltraScale+ FPGAs with
High Bandwidth Memory and CCIX Technology
acceleration
to
any
CCIX-enabled processor
to address compute
acceleration applications.
“In package integration
of DRAM represents a
massive leap forward in
memory bandwidth for
high end FPGA-enabled
applications,” said Kirk
Saban, senior director of
FPGA and SoC Product
Management at Xilinx.
“HBM integration in our industry leading devices provides
a clear path to multi-terabit memory bandwidth and our
acceleration enhanced technology will enable efficient
heterogeneous computing for our customers’ most
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